Wired publishes Manning chat logs in full

Wired has published in full the chat logs it received of conversations between accused whistleblower Bradley Manning and Adrian Lamo, who turned him in. [Threat Level]
An excerpt:

(10:20:53 AM) bradass87: yes... questioned my gender for several years... sexual orientation was easy to figure out... but i started to come to terms with it during the first few months of my deployment
(10:21:09 AM) info@adrianlamo.com: May I ask the particulars?
(10:21:34 AM) info@adrianlamo.com: I'm bi myself, and my ex is MTF.
(10:21:34 AM) bradass87: im fairly open... but careful, so yes..
(10:22:00 AM) bradass87: im aware of your bi part
(10:22:24 AM) bradass87: uhm, trying to keep a low profile for now though, just a warning
(10:23:34 AM) info@adrianlamo.com: I'm a journalist and a minister. You can pick either, and treat this as a confession or an interview (never to be published) & enjoy a modicum of legal protection.

I find it hard to accept that the last line there was "sensitive personal information with no bearing on WikiLeaks, [that] would serve no purpose to publish." It reads like a deliberated attempt to manipulate or even entrap Manning, on Lamo's part, and seems quite important to understanding what Manning thought he was doing by talking to him.
Here is a remarkable exchange between Manning and Lamo, talking about Wikileaks chief Julian Assange:

So what he said was strictly a fair warning about not saying too much, but he made it deceptive and manipulative by wrapping it in terms of being a minister and member of the press. I agree, that’s a damning quote.

Also:

(1:54:55 PM) bradass87: but im not a source for youâ€¦ im talking to you as someone who needs moral and emotional fucking support

I think Lamo’s defense is that he wasn’t the one committing an illegal act, Manning approached him. I neither agree or disagree with Manning’s actions. But I do acknowledge that he broke his oath and a pretty clear law. I could see a whistleblower defense if he had walked into a newspaper office and said “I’ve seen these things and they are wrong”, but he didn’t.

My only speculation into his mental state is that he seems to have wanted to be caught. Confessing to a stranger is not how you run a successful conspiracy.

And I don’t think Lamo’s use of the minister bit is new information. I believe it was at least in one Glenn Greenwald’s columns.

“Confessing to a stranger is not how you run a successful conspiracy.”

You don’t seem to understand how this works, so let me edify you:

1. You can confess to anyone you like; it makes no difference whether you know them beforehand. Since Lamo was representing himself as a minister, everyone knows that such confessions are protected, even if a potential crime is involved. No court has ever held against that shield. The fact that Lamo lied and was perhaps acting as an agent of the federal government at the time he told that lie invalidates his credibility.

2. There is no conspiracy at work here regarding Manning’s alleged actions, and there never was. That’s something you are implying, but without any facts or evidence to make a case.

Maybe you should stick to what you know best about this: nothing, and keep quiet.

So, if Manning “broke his oath and a pretty clear law,” why is he sitting in military prison while hundreds of other soldiers who’ve killed civilians in cold blood walk around free? They’re breaking their oath and any number of laws. Frankly, one needlessly dead person is worth more than the mental well-being of hundreds of lawbending ‘lawmakers’ and war criminals (I’m talking the government, not the military rank-and-file).

Oh – so you have documentation of hundreds of soldiers killing civilians in cold blood?

No – you don’t. In fact in the rare case of soldiers killing civilians on purpose, they have been been charged as such.

You may not like the wars in the middle east – and that’s cool. You may appreciate, even support what Manning was trying to do – and that’s cool. You may think his current treatment is unacceptable – and that’s cool.

What isn’t cool is drawing parallels between him and either fictitious “cold-blooded” soldiers, or generically labeling soldiers as such.

Well, if you read the wikileaks on Iraq and Afghanistan you’ll find quite a few. To mention a couple: the helicopter troupes that shot down men surrendering to them because “you can’t surrender to a helicopter” and the countless of torture cases American soldiers have been told to ignore as it’s the Iraqi government doing the torturing.

Those were the ones I was talking about. The fact they are imprisoned and charged with a crime contradicts the statement that soldiers “killed civilians in cold blood walk around free”.

re: “Well, if you read the wikileaks on Iraq and Afghanistan you’ll find quite a few.”

If there was clear evidence of intentionally targeting civilians, then those soldiers would be tried. Mistakes, collateral damage, or the umbrella of ‘war is hell’ means bad things can happen with out them being a ‘war crime’.

Christ – people throw around ‘war crimes’ so cavalier these days. Look up Mladic or people who were actually accused and tried of war crimes to see what they really look like.

Mistakes, collateral damage, or the umbrella of ‘war is hell’ means bad things can happen with out them being a ‘war crime’. Christ – people throw around ‘war crimes’ so cavalier these days.

That’s rich coming from someone who throws ‘collateral damage’ around as if it didn’t mean repeatedly killing civilians, including repeatedly bombing wedding parties. But Afghan children aren’t real people; they’re just collateral. You’ve repeatedly made it clear that you just don’t care about people in other countries having their lives destroyed.

I’m being a realist. If you compare it to any other conflict in the 20th century, you will find civilian casualties are low. If you look at the ROE, you will find it more restrictive than in any conflict in the past. If you look at the sheer amount of aid and rebuilding of infrastructure, nothing compares to it except the Marshal Plan. These are facts. “Collateral Damage” is the accurate description and is inline with it’s historical use. Calling “War Crimes” on something that isn’t cheapens the word. Maybe you personally find it a ‘war crime’ but history doesn’t concur.

You want to condemn the war – fine. But if you paint a picture of wanton destruction and disregard for civilians as being the norm for the bulk of the war, you are not being honest. Sure – you can find examples the contrary, but they are not the norm and pale in comparison to anything else in the past.

Something like 75% of the civilians killed in Afghanistan are from Taliban fire. Given the lopsided amount of weaponry, shouldn’t that number be less? Are they actually the ones with no regard for human life?

1. So comparing the things that happen now to a past when even *more* atrocities were committed somehow makes them okay? That’s like saying ‘look at how it was in the fifties, what are you complaining about?’ to people who suffer racial discrimination.

2. And whether or not these things are isolated occurrences that do not make up the bulk of the war, the fact that they even happen in such numbers as they do, with the stupefying lack of plausible justification or proof that they were ‘necessary’, is simply unforgivable. Keep in mind the stringent standards of justification that should be upheld for something as heinous as killing innocent civilians, if that is even really ever justifiable. Do the scales really balance?

Yeah, Lamo really wanted into WikiLeaks Opsec. Why? Probably his never-ending pursuit of infamy. But that could be achieved just as easily by ratting out Manning. Alternatively: Lamo used Manning as blackmail to try to get a position in WL.

Lamo is a real lamo – a real douche — but there are plenty of those around the internet – ‘Wired’ is the real villain here, they got vague respect and a big readership for there mediocore and now lowlife content – I haven’t read them in a while but what creeps – never trust Wired.

It’s pretty damning of Wired’s Hansen and Poulsen, and their selective editing of the chat logs under false pretenses. Lamo gets exposed (again) for being the reprehensible liar he most certainly is.

Question: if Lamo represented himself as both a journalist and minister, implying a legal shield of confidentiality to Manning in order to get him to reveal more than he may have otherwise, and if Lamo was working simultaneously (or later) as a government informer for either the FBI and/or military/intelligence elements, would that necessarily, legally, prevent anything Manning said to Lamo as noted in the full chat logs from being used in any legal charges and proceedings that will finally be brought against Manning, particularly if Lamo was the _initial_ tipster who informed on Manning to the government?

Since it _seems_ it was Lamo who first brought to government attention what Manning was allegedly doing (and why didn’t the NSA’s Echelon surveillance program catch on first?), does that provide the foundation for a possible dismissal of charges against Manning, as Lamo’s data, obtained under a false claim of journalistic shield or religious confession protections, could the Lamo info be considered “poisoned fruit,” as the lawyers say, or grounds for dismissal due to potential government misconduct, as occurred in the Ellsberg/Pentagon Papers case?

I think that becomes the crucial legal question, and it would be interesting to know one way or the other, and on what legal basis or which precedents pertain, if any. Not being an attorney, maybe others here can comment on these questions of law.

And why would Wired reveal the full (???) chat logs only _now,_ after more than a year of withholding them? What legal liability, either civil or criminal, does Wired, Hansen (Wired’s editor in chief), Poulsen, Wired’s publisher/owner (Conde Nast), or Lamo have, now that the full logs have been revealed, from a criminal and/or civil perspective?

It seems Lamo (what a perfect surname) is not the only deceptive and dishonest player in this expanding imbroglio, although he (among others involved, as noted here) will probably use the argument that since a massive leak of national security-related data was involved, that the ends justified the means. Spooky stuff.

As a mathematician I found the pieces of the log regarding what the NSA people had told Bradley very interesting.

In particular the claim that the NSA could break RSA at 2048 bits if they used national level computing power.

Put simply, I do not believe this. Why? Bradley also said that some Uni. of Michigan researchers had found a way to crack RSA 1024. In fact, their technique involved physical access to specific hardware and manipulation of the power supply to cause errors in the CPU. This has nothing to do with cracking the RSA algorithm itself which would be of extremely great significance.

Why not 2048 bits? The best known algorithms for cracking RSA have subexponential complexity which can be described by a mathematical function L_n[1/3, alpha]. Simply plugging in the number of bits and the amount of computing power you have will tell you how long it will take. 2048 bits? Not in a million years — literally.

Could the NSA have an algorithm we don’t know about? Maybe. But a very thorough search of the literature gives a few hints as to what the limits of human ingenuity currently are in this field, and no, I do not think they possess such an algorithm.

The question remains. Was Bradley lied to? Was he simply mistaken? Did he lie to Lamo? Has that been inserted into the chat logs? So many possibilites.

Sigh…now your site is generating “Movable Type” error codes, regardless of how much I whittle down my initial comment. Oddly, this comment does allow preview mode, and so will probably get published. This is too tedious and dysfunctional for me.

Can a moderator try to explain why this is happening? What is the precise character limit for comments?

Question: if Lamo represented himself as both a journalist and minister, implying a legal shield of confidentiality to Manning in order to get him to reveal more than he may have otherwise, and if Lamo was working simultaneously (or later) as a government informer for either the FBI and/or military/intelligence elements, would that necessarily, legally, prevent anything Manning said to Lamo as noted in the full chat logs from being used in any legal charges and proceedings that will finally be brought against Manning, particularly if Lamo was the _initial_ tipster who informed on Manning to the government?

Since it _seems_ it was Lamo who first brought to government attention what Manning was allegedly doing (and why didn’t the NSA’s Echelon surveillance program catch on first?), does that provide the foundation for a possible dismissal of charges against Manning, as Lamo’s data, obtained under a false claim of journalistic shield or religious confession protections, could the Lamo info be considered “poisoned fruit,” as the lawyers say, or grounds for dismissal due to potential government misconduct, as occurred in the Ellsberg/Pentagon Papers case?

I think that becomes the crucial legal question, and it would be interesting to know one way or the other, and on what legal basis or which precedents pertain, if any. Not being an attorney, maybe others here can comment on these questions of law.

And why would Wired reveal the full (???) chat logs only _now,_ after more than a year of withholding them? What legal liability, either civil or criminal, does Wired, Hansen (Wired’s editor in chief), Poulsen, Wired’s publisher/owner (Conde Nast), or Lamo have, now that the full logs have been revealed, from a criminal and/or civil perspective?

Your succinct commentary sums up nicely the problems with Wired‘s previous assertions about why it did not originally release the full chats between Lamo and Manning. That publication has done itself serious damage.

You want to condemn the war – fine. But if you paint a picture of wanton destruction and disregard for civilians as being the norm for the bulk of the war, you are not being honest. Sure – you can find examples the contrary, but they are not the norm and pale in comparison to anything else in the past.

Wanton destruction and disregard for civilians is the norm for all war. That is one of many reasons why sensible people advocate against wars of choice.

I have this strange feeling that your opinions would be about 180 degrees from where they are if it was North America being occupied and the “collateral damage” were Anglophones.